Prosecutor Steps Softly In His New Job in Bronx

By DON TERRY

Published: July 3, 1989

Robert T. Johnson, the Bronx District Attorney, is not known as a big risk taker. As a boy he dreamed of becoming a court officer like his father because ''it looked like a secure job.''

So when he told his family last year that he would resign his judgeship, enter borough politics and run for the District Attorney's office, they were surprised.

''I wanted to make more of an impact on the system,'' he said recently. ''A judge is limited to the cases on his calendar. But the D.A. has an impact on each and every case that comes into the system.''

Mr. Johnson has been the District Attorney for six months, and so far the impact, like the man, has been quiet and deliberate. No Major Staff Changes

The 41-year-old prosecutor, the first black district attorney in New York State, has not made any major changes in the 600-member office - partly by intention and partly because of his temperament.

''First of all, I didn't want to make wholesale changes,'' Mr. Johnson said. ''The office needed a certain stability. And you don't make changes for changes sake.''

''People come into a job like this and want to make their imprint right away,'' he said. ''A lot of that has to do with ego. I'm not that kind of person. I can make decisions and changes. I just don't think they have to be made prematurely or noisily.''

So far the most noise Mr. Johnson has made as District Attorney was when he barred a newspaper reporter, who had displeased him in the past, from an impromptu news conference in his office. Mr. Johnson was sharply criticized for the action by editorial writers and columnists, one of whom called him ''paranoid.'' 'Feeling His Way'

''I think Rob is essentially feeling his way right now,'' said Murray Richman, a defense lawyer and a former assistant prosecutor in the Bronx. ''I think he'll grow into the position. Rob Johnson has the potential to be a tremendous district attorney.''

If Mr. Johnson is to realize that potential, he must improve the office's conviction rate in jury trials. In the first five months of this year, it was 62 percent in the Bronx, compared with 72 percent citywide.

Precisely why the Bronx jury trial conviction rate is so poor is unclear. But Mr. Johnson has made improving it a top priority.

''There are so many variables involved,'' he said recently. ''It's hard to say why. The quality of the legal work has some affect on it. But I don't think that's a major negative. I see a hard-working staff, good morale.''

But most cases are disposed of not by jury trial, but by plea bargaining, he noted, and here ''our overall conviction rate is among the highest in the city.'' High Overall Convictions

The Bronx had the second highest overall conviction rate in New York City in the first five months of this year, said Mary C. De Bourbon, the director of communications for the Office of Court Administration New York State Courts.

That rate, which includes jury trial convictions and guilty pleas, was 87.2 percent in the Bronx. The citywide rate was 83 percent. Staten Island had the highest overall conviction rate.

Part of Mr. Johnson's plan to improve his office's performance includes providing more training for new assistant district attorneys, most of whom are hired out of law school, said Edward V. McCarthy, a spokesman for the Bronx District Attorney.

Mr. Johnson has ordered more ''second seating'' - a system that calls for a less experienced prosecutor to sit in on a trial being conducted by an experienced assistant, Mr. McCarthy said. Varied Professional Background

Mr. Johnson was born in the South Bronx and lived in Manhattan until he was 16 years old, when his family moved to the Bronx's Soundview section. He had a varied professional background before he was elected prosecutor, including work as a Legal Aid lawyer, an assistant district attorney in the Bronx, a Criminal Court judge and an acting justice in State Supreme Court.

Mr. Johnson, who was an assistant prosecutor from 1978 to 1986 under Mario Merola, said he learned early to check and double check the evidence before going to trial.

He said he would also like to see more minority assistant district attorneys hired. When he was sworn in as prosecutor in January, 22 percent of the assistants were minorities, he said. The Bronx is nearly 70 percent black and Hispanic residents.

But next month, when the next group of recently hired assistants begin work, 40 percent will be minorities, he said.

He said both Mr. Merola, who died in October 1987, and Paul T. Gentile, who served as interim District Attorney until Mr. Johnson's election last year, had also been committed to hiring minority attorneys. 'Some Really Tough Odds'

''We're dealing with a small pool of applicants,'' he said, adding that from 1984 through 1986 only 10 percent of the country's law school graduates were minorities. ''Mr. Merola and Paul did a great job against some really tough odds.''

Mr. Johnson said he had found another obstacle in the path of minority recruitement - suspicion.

''Sometimes,'' he said, ''I find when talking to minority law students that they don't feel that becoming assistant district attorneys is politically righteous. They feel that working for the prosecution is working against the community somehow.

''I tell them that both defense attorneys and prosecutors have the chance to represent the poor and the oppressed,'' he said. ''Most of our victims in Bronx County are poor and oppressed.''

Thus far Mr. Johnson has received generally good marks as District Attorney. A Good Listener

Judge Burton B. Roberts, the administrative judge for the criminal division of State Supreme Court in the Bronx, said Mr. Johnson had an open mind. ''He doesn't agree with everything I say or think,'' Judge Roberts said, ''but he listens.''

''In the six months that he's been District Attorney,'' the judge continued, ''I find him easier to talk to and to deal with, and to enlist the cooperation of, than I had in the past with Mario Merola.''

Denise Outram, president of the Metropolitan Black Bar Association, said Mr. Johnson's presence in the District Attorney's office would help show minorities that they had a stake in society.

''It makes a difference to have a black D.A.,'' she said. ''There has been a real lack of trust and confidence in the community of not only the D.A.'s office, but of the police as well. Now the level of confidence might be raised a little bit because a black person holds that position.''